


parallel

by FullMetamorphosis, klismaphilia



Category: Original Work, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Backstory, Blood and Violence, Borderline Personality Disorder, Character Study, Eating Disorders, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Extended Metaphors, Gender Dysphoria, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Internal Conflict, Loss of Control, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Minor Character Death, Multi, Parallels, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Sexual Slavery, Slavery, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 01:26:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15719082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullMetamorphosis/pseuds/FullMetamorphosis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/klismaphilia/pseuds/klismaphilia
Summary: It is the life one leads that shapes their character, be it through tragedy or a lack thereof. Hindsight presents itself in ways that are unexpected and unforeseen. Pain takes longer to process.Or; a tale of two individuals' mirrored lives and the miraculous twist of fate that led them to intersect in a galaxy far, far away.





	parallel

**Author's Note:**

> note from Haiden: this was a piece that TJ and I wrote a good while back, and finally touched up so it could see the light of day. it's a work in our joint-universe that may not correspond fully with other SWTOR work we have done, but nonetheless is quite precious to us in light of how much we've developed these characters in this universe.
> 
> Venereth/Irinei Jivai belongs to klismaphilia and Alexei Wright belongs to FullMetamorphosis. You can find these characters on the Satele Shan server as Venereth and Alexei Wright respectively. Always looking to interact with fellow writers!

**parallel**

n. (countable)/ something that is similar or analogous to another, but exists  
or happens in a different place or at a different time.

 

The slave wasn't impossibly young, but his face still held a tone of softness that accentuated the obstinate look in his eyes as he leaned against the table, one hand flat against the metal surface. Two strips of flimsy, opalescent fabric hung from either side of the gold band looped around his waist, settling just over the divots of bony hips. His green skin was flushed, slick with a layer of sweat even around the golden cuffs adorning his arms just above and below the elbow.

****

To the untrained eye, the slave looked exactly the part of a slandered whore. But there was more to him than his appearance might suggest-- even the Sith who sat before him could understand that much, only had to reach out and touch his skin to feel the pent up sea of rage boiling just underneath the Mirialan’s seemingly collected outer facade. He crossed his arms as the slave moved closer, throwing a leg over his thigh and straddling him enough to sit on his lap, hands stretching over his head and hooking around his neck as he rolled his hips forward with a brief sigh.

****

“Don't get many of your kind here,” the Mirialan whispered, leaning in just enough to breathe lightly against the Sith Lord’s ear. His voice was a husky mess in spite of his attempt to disguise  the thinly veiled frustration exuding from his mind, slipping slightly from a distinct Imperial accent to ‘mangled outer-rim.’ “But I like powerful men. I'm _certain_ we can work something out…”

****

His movements were halted abruptly by the hand on his waist, gripping tightly to his flesh, hard enough to leave the imprint of fingers against his hip. The slave glared, fire in his eyes and shoulders tensed with rage at the Sith’s audacity to hold him still and keep him bound, like some sort of amusing display at auction.

****

“You can quit the act, slave,” the Sith began, amused at the way the alien’s brow drew tight in anger and one of his hands balled into a fist almost naturally. “I'm not here for sex.”

****

“Oh _really?_ So… you just wanted to have a friendly chat… in a seedy Red Light cantina… with a pleasure slave?” he scoffed, leaning back, arms crossing over his chest with an irreverent glare. “Sorry if I _misinterpreted_ your intent.”

****

“I will admit this is rather unconventional,” the Sith nearly purred, leaning forward as the defiant man tensed, clearly unnerved by the sound of a locking door across the room. His back straightened, a hand moving to rest on the Sith’s chest, some final attempt to put distance between their bodies. “But I think you're going to like what I have to say.”

****

“Get on with it, then.”

****

“You're rather _disobedient_ for a slave, aren't you?”

****

The slave stilled, bristling, clutching at his own arms as he waited for a brutal reprimand...which never came.

****

A minute passed, and the Sith paused, frowning. “So much _hatred_ in you… I have never felt anything like it before.”

****

“I'm a slave. It's not exactly the most pleasant lifestyle,” he nodded gesturing to the closed door. “But I get by, here.”

****

“And yet I believe ‘getting by’ is not nearly enough for you, young one.”

****

“I suppose,” Irinei responded, laissez-faire. “But it's not like some stranger is apt to come by and spirit me away from this, is there? I'm edging on thirty-three. Getting too old to be good company, in most eyes.”

****

The Sith laid a hand atop the table, rising to his feet. “Don't fret too much. I'm not in the business of keeping ‘good’ company.” He turned, facing the wall with an expression of near apathy. “Your attitude would serve you well as a Sith. Tell me, do you recall an… incident about two months back, involving a smuggler and a Twi’lek woman? In this very room, perhaps?”

****

Irinei gripped the back of the chair with white knuckles, sinking teeth into his own lip. “You mean the one where I pulled a blaster on a _buyer_ threatening my friend? How could I forget.”

****

“Yes, yes,” the Sith mumbled. “Exactly. But I'm more interested in how you _got_ the blaster.”

****

“Incapacitated a devaronian,” the younger man answered with a smirk. “He was out like a light the second I touched his head. Fun trick.”

****

“But a unique one… something that could not be done by a force null. You have potential.”

****

The alien raised his eyebrows, stepping back once more only to wince as the edge of the table dug into the small of his back, enough to leave a mark indented in his flesh. His legs suddenly felt weak at the knees, knocking together no matter how he attempted to hold himself confidently.

****

“What are you saying? What is this?”

****

“I'm saying that you have an opportunity.” A hand dropped to Irinei’s shoulder, tracing along the curve of his collarbone and stopping flat across his chest. “You will be taken to Korriban, to the Sith Academy. And you will be trained.”

****

“I don't have a choice.” He mused, not posing it as a question. The Sith merely patted his shoulder in kind, noting the way Irinei shuddered at the gesture. A false display of sympathy, made all the worse by the Sith’s pitying taunt of a smirk. Stars, it made him angry-- enough to punch something… break someone… _slaughter all within his sight._

****

“No, you don't. Though I must say… it's a better life that the one you'll have if you remain here. You could have a future-- outside of slavery, away from these lesser creatures who covet you for your body.”

****

Irinei raised his eyes once more, hatred seeping from his skin and surrounding his body with a dangerous, invisible aura. “So I'm to be taken from a kriffing slavemaster's harem, still weak and _barely_ more than a slave, thrown into the Sith Academy with no formal training, made to compete against other acolytes for nothing but the preservation of my own life and then _allowed_ the wondrous fate of being pledged to another master-- only this time they can use the Force to kill me instead of threatening me with knives and blasters. Is that it?”

****

Chuckling, the Sith lord smiled. “Cynical, but accurate, I suppose. You will not be given any advantages. But you would be powerful.”

****

He bit his lip. Shut his eyes, and breathed in deeply. Then, with no more than a barely notable hint of delight in his voice, asked: “Do I get to kill people?”

****

“You may kill any who you deem unworthy, any who question what you are, or your right to privilege-- as long as you are strong enough.”

****

The callous grin that crossed the slave’s face was malicious, sparkling with a renewed sense of loathing. “Then count me in.”

****

“Cruel, wicked child,” the Sith professed. “Your madness will shake the very foundations of our blighted galaxy.”

 

* * *

 

She’s still a sight. Provided with a private room and refresher, yet even if she’d bathed, it’d done little to remove the stained blood across her face, nor the grime under her nails or the tracks of constant tears down her cheeks. Even from where she shifts and fidgets from the other side of his desk, Osiris can see the child is nearly terrified. Filthy. Still clinging to the fabric of her clothes, though large and formless on her scrawny body.

 

Osiris sighs and reaches under his desk. The child flinches, but he just pulls out a bottle of brandy and sets it down on his desk along with two glasses. “I imagine you don’t drink?”

 

“I-I can drink,” she says. Her voice is just a whisper, hoarse. Osiris shakes his head.

 

“No orders here. None you have to follow at least,” he pours himself a drink and leans back with the glass in his hand. “I wanted to talk to you. There wasn’t much we could gather from you nor the Sith when we boarded your vessel. You were off to Korriban?”

 

“The Sith-” she rasps, and stops to cough. “D-Darth Incubine - he bought me. From my master.”

 

“You were a slave?”

 

“Yes, my lord.”

 

“Unfortunate,” he muses. He takes a sip from his drink.

 

“My lord-” he looks up at her, and at her wide eyes and the marks left across their face. The deep cuts are still fresh and bleeding down her cheek. He’s not sure what they came from, and he’s not sure he wants to know.

 

“Sir,” the girl continues, trembling, “Are you going to take me back to Hutta?”

 

He stares.

 

“My sister is st-still on Hutta. So is th-that man. My owner, a-and his son,” she drop her eyes and plays with the hem of her shirt. “I don’t w-want to go back. But my sister-”

 

“Take a deep breath,” he says, and she does. Even through his calm, he can _feel_ her becoming unwound through the Force. No wonder the Sith had tried to take her to Korriban. The Force is strong within her.

 

“No,” he repeats, just thinking about what kind of horrid future she could’ve had, “I’m not taking you back. I despise the very notion of it - rather would see slavery banned from the whole galaxy. Rouses too much hate and frustration. I’m sure you would agree.”

 

“I-I wasn’t frustrated with-”

 

“It’s clear something has rattled you to make your abilities awaken, and so late in life. Being in bondage wouldn’t have helped,” he finishes.

 

He takes another sip. The brandy burns down the back of his throat. The child can’t seem to help from speaking up now. Her green eyes are wide, and frightened.

 

“So- so then what happens to me?”

 

“Well,” he starts, “You have some options. We could find you a family to adopt you. You’re still young, and lots of Mandalorian clans adopt children like you and raise them as one of their own. It wouldn’t be farfetched or unnatural. You’d fit in.”

 

“I-I don’t _want_ a family without Inari.”

 

“Your sister?”

 

They give a nod, lower lip trembling with tears. Even the mention of it seems to make them wilt down smaller and smaller.

 

“Well, you are welcome to stay here, as well. It’s a small academy - you’ll have noticed, we’re not a large station - but we take in students, and we teach them the skills for claiming a bounty. Business, battle, and brains. Most, if not all, of our students become bounty hunters. A good craft and reliable income, if you have the guts for it.”

 

She lifts her chin and frowns. “I-I have the guts for _anything_.”

 

“So you do,” he smiles, and sets his drink down. “Normally we only take a certain number of students at a time, but a student from Alderaan was just pulled, became next in line within his house at home. We’d be perfectly willing to take you on and house you. I’ll even cover the billings”

 

“Even if I’m a slave?”

 

“ _Was_ a slave, actually. With the Sith having bought you from your slave master, and that Sith now dead, you’re free, as far as common law goes. You can make your own choices - though should you choose to stay, I will act as your guardian and help you settle in. You’re small right now, but it’s clear, you still have time to grow strong. _Very_ strong. I can feel it in the Force.”

 

“I thought you were a bounty hunter.”

 

“That doesn’t mean I’m force-null.”

 

They pause. Look down to the floor. Finally, in a mutter, they ask: “Do I get to kill people?”

 

The question almost startles him. An eleven-year old girl, sounding homicidal - but the look in her eyes, and the aging bruises on her neck, say more than enough. The scars on her face, too, are still bleeding heavily; her wrists are still marked from cuffs. And though he can see now how weak she is, trembling under the weight of her own garbs, Osiris knows. Her thoughts of murder-

 

If she succeeded, she’d be fearsome - one of the strongest bounty hunters in the galaxy, with a will that strong.

 

“Yes, Aiko,” he tells her. “If you succeed, you’d have the chance to kill anybody you needed.”

 

She meet his eyes. He realizes, a moment too late, that her eyes have shifted from their earthy green to a faint, yellower hue.

 

“Then I’ll do it.”

 

* * *

 

_Blood._

 

 _Blood, dripping along the inner curve of his arms, trickling down the expanse of green skin from elbow to wrist. Painting his face from temple to chin, lips coated in the slick substance, his mouth smothered by it, taking in the bitter tang of scarlet agony each time he drew breath. His skin stung, pierced by shards of glass so bright they appear nearly ethereal, his inner power spilling out through the cracks left in his flesh with a sheen his mind dare not to look upon. Ichor spills from his body-- his own life essence, not red, but black, black and_ glistening, _littered with the remains of shattered stars. His head sings…_

 

_Warm here._

 

_Stay here._

 

_Peaceful here--_

 

 _But Irinei does not want peace. He has_ never _wanted peace, and that enmity for all things light claws at him from the inside, his skin bursting from somewhere deep under his flesh as the hatred spills out-- fear, rage, disgust--- loathing, loathing, loathing…_

 

_Envy._

 

He lurches forward, toppling half out of the chair his body was still half laid on, slumped over a bundle of hastily formed, half-illegible notes. There’s a creak, somewhere in the room, and for a moment Irinei can’t determine whether the sound is a door, or merely the protest of his own brittle bones. The puckered gash he’d patched up along his ribcage still had yet to heal; sometimes he has to wonder if it’ll rupture again, let all his guts spill in trails across the stretching halls and open grounds of the Sith Academy as a spiteful reminder of his pathetic lineage.

 

 _Peace is a lie; there is only passion,_ Irinei reminds himself, eyelashes fluttering once he finally manages to pull himself away from the inhospitable grey tile of the frigid Academy floor. One hand rests unsteadily against the material beneath him as he pulls himself back to his feet, knees first and one leg at a time. He brushes off the dirt coating his robes with a thin layer of dust, then resettles in the chair beside the mess of papers and encased holocron left atop the desk.

 

There’s another creak; a _footstep._ And suddenly his eyes are flying wide and-- _this is a hallucination._ His body feels almost too light, even as it is bogged down by the knowledge of consequence, and though black spots marr his vision and voices whisper eagerly into his ears, Irinei perseveres-- pushing himself through the haze of insanity until his gaze settles on a young, Sith Pureblood standing before him, watching him with a keen eye.

 

“Why are you not eating?”

 

Irinei shrugged. “Slaves don’t eat, didn’t you hear? If I really get desperate, I’ll go scavenge the tombs. Maybe feast on the flesh of some poor, dying acolyte.” He quirks his lips, revealing his teeth.

 

The Pureblood-- an acolyte younger than him by some years, Irinei discerns-- raises a brow, either in astonishment or amusement.

 

“Are you mad?”

 

“Quite,” the older acolyte retorts with a smirk. “Why? Does ‘mad’ get you going, Sith?” Irinei stands, pulling himself up to sit on the desk, arms folded across his chest, the thin, disheveled fabric of his only robes scratching against his skin.

 

The Sith merely sits on the floor, looking up to him with confused, if somewhat curious, eyes. His hair is long, blood-red and tangled down over one shoulder; it reminds Irinei of the brilliant shades of crimson and alizarin which stained his dream, brought loose from his mind into reality. Bloodshed, torment-- surely this _beloved, Pureblood_ boy could kill a slave, if he so desired.

 

But instead he just continues to stare at Irinei, and then licks his lips as he asks another question. “What are you doing in here?”

 

“Well I have to study, don’t I?” Irinei rolls his eyes. “The other acolytes have years of training on me-- and I’m not to use the library.” He purses his lips, shoulders tensing. “You won’t tell, will you?”

 

“No,” the boy shakes his head.

 

“Good. It’ll be our little secret.” The Mirialan grins, his face lighting up with the expression, adjusting himself so he can pull his legs onto the desk and sit with bent knees, palms placed flat on the surface behind him. “You want anything, kid?”

 

“You’re rather terrifying, for a slave.” The boy adds, flushing redder than his usual complexion would prove to be only moments after, as though not realizing the words had left his mouth until it’s too late. “I-I mean… for a Sith too. You’re so-- _dark.”_

 

A moment of silence overtakes them. Suddenly, with a flick of his tongue over his lip and a sudden pulse of electricity shot through the air, Irinei throws his head back and _cackles_ . And the laughter is opulent; once it bubbles out, it can’t seem to stop, only grows with a need for further chaos as his shoulders shake and his chest heaves. He’s a well of jealousy, of anger, of irreverence, and _none of it_ wants to stay in. The Overseers always despised his truculent attitude, how quick he usually was to try and defy order; other acolytes mocked it, chaining him in the jails or ambushing him in the training rooms, sticking bugs in the sheets of Irinei’s already meager bunk to try and rile his screams.

 

If only they knew just how much it really took to make Irinei _scream._

 

“It’s alright!” Irinei hisses, nearly hysterical. “Oh, yes, _yes._ How dark I am, how _evil_ the useless slave is now. My master would be surprised, wouldn’t he? If he were alive that is…” He pushes himself forward, kicking his legs as he touched his feet to the ground, then drops further and slides to his knees reaching forward to take the fallen acolyte’s face between his hands, his wide grin nearly contagious. “I painted myself in his blood. Killing is so _simple,_ you know? It’s better than sex. So much better than sex… the _pain,_ the _agony,_ oh yes, it’s _so good--!”_

 

Breathless, he shuddered, suddenly drawing back on himself, noting the parted lips of the acolyte before him, the pure _intrigue_ sparkling in those golden orbs.

 

“Wh-what’s your name?” The Sith asks, reaching forward to take one of Irinei’s hands in his own.

 

“You wish to know it?” The future Inquisitor questions, a chill traversing the length of his spine, wary of the intention, uncertain of the reason. The boy only nods, turning Irinei’s hand within his own, his strange brow pinched in concentration. “Irinei.” Irinei answers at last, looking into the acolyte’s eyes. “Who are you?”

 

The Pureblood’s shoulders shrug, his head bowing in concentration as his fingertips run along the lines of Irinei’s palm, eyelids closing to leave him with a surprising expression of serenity on his face.

 

“I’m Theiseike.” The Pureblood answers at last, his eyes still closed as he raises his other hand to brush a thumb over Irinei’s lips, flinching when the force sparks in alarm as the former slave jerks away. “You… have some blood, there.” He adds, squeezing his hand once more. “It suits you.”

 

Irinei’s breath halts. “Blood?” He asks, and Theiseike smiles in agreement. His fingers curl around the other acolyte’s, a gesture of unconventional affection, the most he has allowed himself in some time. “I can get used to that.”

 

* * *

 

All of her nightmares are about _him_. Him and his nasty blue eyes, his cocky grin, and his hand that pulled the fabric from her body. Every dream she has is about him, and as she wakes she sits up in bed, sometimes unable to muffle the scream that’d part from her lips.

 

Four _years_ . And for some reason, she keeps reliving it, that moment that changed everything. The way the slavemaster’s son had pinned her to the wall and tried to . . . to “rape” her, the doctors had explained. And then that feeling inside of her chest that came up and lashed out, and flung his body away from hers - the Force. That had started _everything_ , summoning a Darth Incubine to take her away, and getting beaten across the face with a broken bottle when she resisted. Being taken away on a strange durasteel ship, locked in a cage - being freed by a man with hazel eyes and curly hair and a kind smile.

 

That single incident had led up to . . . all of this. This _suffering_.

 

It’s been like this for four years.

 

Fighting to study her hardest, even illiterate. Trying to focus in classes seated at tiny tables, when she felt so often that people were staring at her. And then in physical practices, nothing more than an excuse to be knocked around and ruined. And after so long, there are moments where she relishes that pain, a feeling of adrenaline coursing under her skin and making a . . . strange, oddly-turbulent feeling rise in her whole body.

 

And then she’s knocked to the floor again, pinned, and she looks up and all she sees in the eyes around her is nothing but disappointment.

 

 _Four years_ , she tell herself as she forces herself in empty training rooms, weights stacked against the walls, rolling into the blisters on her hands, _and for what? I’m still useless. Still a wreck compared to everybody here. All these happy boys and girls who get to write home to parents and siblings, and meanwhile I’m just- nothing. Rot._

 

 _I thought this would’ve been worth it, but it isn’t without my sister_.

 

The dreams get worse. Her body continues to change, but it’s all softness, unfamiliar and forbidden. Resentment, ache, and the urge to scratch everything away with untamed nails.

 

The nightmares get worse. She can’t sleep.

 

The station isn’t small, sure, but it’s stabilizing, familiar. It’s like a new home, if she ever had one to begin with. And the floor is cool under her bare feet as she walks the hallways at night. No boots to cover her feet, of course, but it doesn’t matter. She has undergarments and her clothes and the rags for her unusual times of bleeding. That was all she needed, really. _But if only she could hide the disfigurement of her chest, and the fat on her hips, and the softness of her hands that still fought hard-won callouses_ -

 

There’s footsteps at her back. She spins around and come face-to-face with Osiris.

 

“Why are you not eating?”

 

The question surprises her at first. She steps back, hands clenching into fists. “What?”

 

“The other students tell me you haven’t been eating. Is there a reason why?” he crosses his arms and taps his foot against the floor. “Answer me, and I won’t write you up for being out of the dorms this late.”

 

“Then I guess you’ll have to write me up. Get on with it, then,” she scowls and nods to the notebook in his hand. “I bet you have a form tucked in there all filled out, just for me. I’d offer to help you spell my name, but it’s not like I know, either.”

 

“I don’t have a form for you, Aiko. Much as you may disbelieve it, I don’t wander this late to find troublesome students. Much like you, I imagine, I don’t sleep.”

 

“How convenient.”

 

“Aiko, you haven’t been eating. I’d like to know why.”

 

“Not like I’ve needed a lot to eat. Never been allowed much to begin with. And everything just makes me feel sick.”

 

“You _have_ to eat. You can’t gain the muscle you need to if you don’t. If you’re struggling with your diet, then tell the chefs, or the nurses. They’ll accommodate-”

 

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s what I need, right? _Accommodations_ . For the _slave_.”

 

“You aren’t a slave anymore.”

 

“I’m slave to my nightmares and my habits. Once a slave, always a slave. Isn’t that what all the Sith say?”

 

“And that’s why you don’t eat. Or sleep, for that matter,” Osiris drops his arms and sighs. “I’ve seen you out here, wandering. I can tell, your performance has been suffering for a long time. Your last physical exam proved it - weakness, and stunted growth. You’re exhausting yourself.”

 

“And? What do you care?” she sighs and shakes her head. She looks away from him, and crosses her arms as if she could hold herself - but that just reminds her of her own chest, and she drops her arms hastily. “I’m hated for my past. I’m alone without my only family. And I’m stuck in a body I can’t change, and that won’t grow. What’s the point of it? All I’m ever going to be is useless - just like I was told. Only useful for- for the hands of a _rapist_.”

 

“You’re _not_ ,” Osiris snaps. She nearly jumps when he puts his hands on her shoulders and shakes her, just a little. All of a sudden, she can sense him like a wall of emotion - worry, fear, hope. It’s so foreign. Even after the blast that’d revealed her four years ago, she rarely feels the Force anymore, hindering her connection with the repressors the doctors gave her every few days. To feel it now feels almost reassuring, if not frightening, but Master Osiris doesn’t seem to mean her ill will. Even if his brows are drawn, and he’s . . . frowning . . .

 

“I’ll speak with the chefs,” he suddenly declares, shaking her a little more, but with eyes open and honest with worry. “We’ll make sure they make things you can stomach, Aiko. And if you need rest, you are _always_ welcome into my quarters. I always keep an extra bed ready. That should help with your performance,” He pauses. “And,” he adds almost in afterthought, “I’m going to refer you to our counselor on-board. What with this slavermaster’s son and his . . . assault. You shouldn’t have gone through that. Ever.”

 

“But I did,” she answers quietly. He reaches forward and rubs a thumb away from the corner of her eye. She hadn’t even realized she’d been crying.

 

“I know. But having somebody to talk to - who can guide you a little more - it should help,” he finishes with a weak, but still clear smile. “If it helps? You _were_ accepted into the new parkour course. Your speed and strength have been improving, and we all know how focused you’ve been. You just need some _confidence_ , and you’ll become a hunter yet. I have total faith in you, Aiko.”

 

“You’re one person who does,” she mutters. He shakes his head, but smiles.

 

“More people believe in you than you may ever know, Aiko. Now. Would you like to rest in my quarters?”

 

***

 

Lying in the guest bed of Osiris’s quarters, Aiko turns his words over in her mind. How she _was_ improving - that she was getting faster, and stronger. And that people believed in her - even asking about her health. That all she needed was . . . confidence.

 

“Osiris?” she calls out into the dark. Within moments, the door to her guest room opens. Osiris peeks in, brow raised, concern in his expression. Aiko sits up and looks at him for a moment, thinking something over. She bites her lip. Then, she speaks.

 

“One of my teachers was talking about . . . about how some people get referred to as a ‘they’, or a ‘them’,” she explains. “And that some change their names. Is . . . is that right?”

 

Osiris doesn’t answer with a word. But after a moment, he does give a nod.

 

“Could I . . .” she swallows down her nerves. “Can I do that, too?”

 

He smiles. “What do you want me to call you, then?”

 

She wants to be somebody strong. She wants to be somebody that can be relied on, who can look at the face of her attacker and stare them down. And more than anything, she wants to be the kind of person who can protect who she loves. Somebody strong enough to defend her sister.

 

Strong enough to defend _themselves_.

 

“Alexei. I want you to call me Alexei.”

 

* * *

 

“ _Pfaasking useless!”_

 

The acolyte curses, slamming his filthy, black-nailed hand against the solid rock of Naga Sadow’s tomb. His knuckles were blistered, painted red with blood from the force of his swing as his bones smashes against stone and pushed to the surface of his flesh, skin crawling with the unnerving feeling of tiny legs moving beneath the surface-- worms and bugs burrowing their way inside his body just like the _parasite_ of the Force had burrowed inside his head. Mud streaks his gaunt face, stained the tattered robes he’d worn through the academy brown and black-- he looks exactly like the filth he'd been born in, the disgusting _slave_ he had once been raised as. Irinei leaves the tomb as he left Nar Shaddaa-- empty handed, full of rage, at the mercy of betters who wanted only to watch him grovel, beg and die in the dirt. And for what purpose? None-- because he was _a failure, a stain on the legacy of the_ true _Sith,_ according to Harkun and the other purists at the Academy, _wretched, worthless, loathsome..._

 

Irinei pulls himself from the mess of the ground on weak knees, doubling over with his hands pressed against his concave stomach and mangled ribcage, nauseated by the mere thought of defeat; likely Ffon has already returned. Likely, his entire _mission_ was for naught; just another attempt to rid the Sith of a repulsive slave, _protect the purity of our beloved academy so the elitists can continue to delude themselves into thinking they own the galaxy, that they’re above even the strongest of aliens… rimkin scum like me..._

 

Irinei’s eyes close tight, lashes fluttering against his swollen cheekbones. He remembers, abruptly, the creature he'd spotted before; alone and cast aside to hide amongst the ruins of Naga Sadow’s dilapidated resting place. The creature had a tormented look in its eye, but there was nothing but strength in its voice even as it had plead to him, hunched over and wallowing in the dust of the antechamber.

 

_Yes, you understand? The Sith are not kind to us. Aliens._

 

 _Slaves,_ another voice pops into his mind, and force lightning flies from Irinei’s fingertips, striking the wall with such raw anger it nearly blasted apart at the first hit. _“I hate you!”_ He screeches, digging nails into his palms enough to draw more blood forth, spit flying from his mouth as he tossed his head back, teeth clenching and weakened frame trembling. Tears spill over his tattooed cheeks, leaving trails of salt in their wake. Irinei hates that he's crying; hates his _weakness,_ which seems more prominent now than it ever was before. He can't take it-- can't think, can’t hear, can’t see… blood pounds through his brain, shrieking _uselessuselessuseless--_

 

“ _I_ **_hate_ ** _you, I hate_ **_all of you,_ ** _I hate_ **_the galaxy,_ ** _damn it all to death--!”_

 

Flames spread across the ground, licking at the acolyte’s ankles, swirling before his line of sight as he rips the training saber from his waist and drags the metal tip over the beaten stone of the inner tomb.

 

“I am a _slave._ I will _always_ be a slave to them-- _always,_ unless I show them what real power is...”

 

With his eyes fixed solely on the entrance to the tomb bathed in a subtle orange glow from the dusk outside, Irinei’s teeth grit, his hands tightening on his saber, blood leaking from the wound on his head, rivulets sliding down his face and pooling by his lips. Something dark stirs inside of him, buried deep within his body, a malevolent beast purring in delight at how ferocious his mentality has become.

 

_Show them._

 

_Show them your power._

 

_Show them what you are truly capable of._

 

“You want me to be a _mindless beast?”_ Irinei sneers, as his eyes come to settle upon the high arching columns of the Sith Academy, just beyond the ruins of the Korriban tombs. “Well, you've gotten your wish. I've _finished_ my trials. And I'm absolutely _aching_ for revenge.”

 

* * *

 

The old training armor clatters across his desk. Osiris doesn’t need to look up to know it’s Alexei that’s dropped it there, already clad in the best armor the academy could find for them - old, beaten, but still good. He lifts his eyes and admires the adult before him - how much they’d changed from the child they were before.

 

In the three years since they’d changed their name, so had their body changed, too. Gone was the ghost of a girl marred by abuse and neglect - before him stood a tall, honed _warrior_. In three years, they’d had a total upswing: they began to eat, and their body began to grow, and in a sudden spurt over the course of a few months, their height shot up and their body began to fill in the missing places where muscle needed to be. Wide shoulders, a strong core, and a posture filled with certainty. Their yellow-green eyes look at him, and he can see the certainty within them.

 

They really did it. They’d become a hunter. And now . . .

 

“You’re leaving,” he says. It’s not a question. The look in their eyes leaves no room for confusion.

 

“I’ve graduated, haven’t I? I’m ready to go. I just need to collect some money and then I’ll be able to catch a shuttle to Hutta, and I can find Inari again.”

 

“It’s been seven years,” he muses, propping his chin in one hand. “Both of you must’ve changed a great deal. But I’ll admit, I was hoping you’d stay. You’re still untrained in the Force - that has to be changed eventually.”

 

“I’ve got the repressors. And I know how to find more,” they point to their elbows - the insides are rashed and scarred, indicative of all the injections they’d had over the past few years. “They hurt like hell, but they work. That’s all I need.”

 

“They won’t work forever, Alexei. Where will you be when your body starts rejecting them? Your power’s still growing, and there will come a day when you won’t be able to restrain yourself any longer.”

 

“And? I’ll find somebody to help me then,” they argue and look away, fiddling with their collar. “Everybody here, they don’t want me around anyway. Regardless of how they act, I’ll always be a weak, little slave to them. I came here like that, but now I’m leaving a hunter. Rather they see that then continue to think of me as needing the comfort.”

 

“. . . if that’s your choice,” he says. He sighs. Underneath the training armor they’d delivered him, he can see the papers he’d been reading, the files about Alderaan. He leans back in his chair and rubs at his temple. “You know, I’d put together a gift for you. But it’s not ready yet.”

 

“Well, I hardly imagine we won’t meet again,” they say with a gesture around the room. “These quarters are the closest thing to home I know. I’ll be back some day, Master Osiris. You can bet on it.”

 

The corner of his lip quirks up in a semi-smile. “I’m sure of it, Alexei,” he says. “Until then, you have your job. Now you just need to find your home.”

 

* * *

 

_Blood of my blood._

 

_Son of my sons._

 

Kallig’s promises haunt him, words circling throughout his mind over and over again, the endless spiral pushing Irinei ever closer to the precipice of his sanity. No matter how intensely the Mirialan tries to focus on expelling the unnecessary chatter from his head, Kallig’s presence remains; taunting him from within the force, far beyond Irinei’s mortal reach. And he is so _angry._ His fingers twitch as his toes curl, body set on edge, red-rimmed and bloodshot eyes staring vacantly at the letter lain in his lap.

 

_Your mother has died._

 

A part of Irinei had known before he left-- that forsaking his history would mean forsaking his family as well-- his _true_ family, whatever they had been. His mother, Kana; he didn't have much to remember her by, but he could still envision her smile and raucous laughter when he tried to tell her a story, the way her calloused hands would brush tears from his cheeks when he was sad… how she would bundle him and Haise under the flimsy blankets on her bed in the winter and curl her own body around them, singing Huttese lullabies to try and relax his sister’s colic. Irinei had felt safe in her arms, once; before he was taken from her. Before he had lost, and suffered the attentions of greedy hands and demanding clients.

 

There had been others, later; Aralik’reen, who had snuck food out of the kitchens with him when the servants weren’t looking, who had first discovered the potential of his mind tricks when it came to swindling… to hear from her now is nearly painful, given that the last time they'd met she’d been cowering in a corner while Irinei stood over the corpse of her last client. She was the closest thing he'd had to kin in those last, agonizing months of his enslavement...

 

 _You are Sith now,_ a too-familiar voice echoes, clawing its way out from the abyss of his gut, cleaving his heart in two with a single sentence. _You are Sith,_ **_Sith_ ** _, you have_ **_no_ ** _family-- your family is--_

 

 _Lineage,_ something else reminds him. _You are the son of my sons, the harbinger of our galaxy’s destiny. Take hold of your future. Nar Shaddaa has nothing for you but pain and memory. Hardship. When you were last there you were wasting away in a slave camp; preserving your own physical needs by sacrificing your dignity; throwing yourself at others for the sake of--_

 

Irinei cringes away from the repetitive words resounding against the walls of his skull, lashing out in a blind rage, his fists slamming down on the console of his new ship as he reels in the urge to scream; he can hardly contain himself, isn't sure how he does when he’s nearly bursting at the seams with all of the loathing desperate to seep out from the cracks in his flesh.

 

“I am _not_ a slave,” he hisses. “I am not a _whore._ Spare me the lectures.”

 

_Talking to yourself?_

 

“As a matter of fact,” he retorts, before pausing. His head snaps back into place with a sudden clarity, need coiling through his entire being, his spirit suffocating under the weight of it… _Destiny. I am… Destiny. Destiny, of greater things, a Sith, not a slave, never again a slave--_

 

The mirror before him splinters and shatters in little more than an instant, shards flinging themselves out across a dull black floor. Irinei glances to his blood-stained hand, bringing split, roughed-up knuckles to his mouth to lick them clean, humming around the blood that he nearly leeches from his own palm.

 

“I shall go…” he begins. “To Nar Shaddaa. It’s due time I made the Hutts pay-- along with every other sleemo in that cesspool.”

 

* * *

 

The plantation’s exactly the same, even in the dark. Alexei’s proud that now they can tread these paths, still so familiar, with the utmost silence. Nobody is awake - no need for guards at this little slave pit. The master and his son assumed there would be no resistance, of course. Back then, they were arrogant. It seems nothing has changed.

 

But it’s not the slave pit they’re interested in, passing straight by to the house. No, they were interested in the _cell_ \- it hadn’t taken much, that morning, to catch the eye of a friend from a safe distance and ask them about Inari. But the words had sunken into them like lead: “She’s been insolation for weeks, now. She hasn’t been well. Been rambling, upset the slavemaster’s kid so much he had them locked up-”

 

 _Their assailant_. A monster - their grip around their blasters grows tighter just thinking about it as they slip into the house without a sound. They remember every creaky spot, can remember from days spent pacing and kneeling and scrubbing at stains that the master sometimes made on purpose, just to see them clean it up again and again until their knuckles bled from rawness. And further down the hallway they can see the spot where they’d been pinned, awakening the power within them - further into the house, deep into the servant’s quarter, and it’s not long before they make it into the wide mess kitchen, and the heavy door with the concrete cell.

 

They can hear _screams_ . Their heart pounds just from the familiar sound of her voice. Their _sister’s_.

 

“Inari, it’s okay,” they’re hushed as they make their way to the door and pull out the torch they’d scavenged from the tool shed earlier in the day. Inari isn’t going quiet despite their words; they thought the door was thin enough for the occupants inside to hear, but the slavemaster must’ve had it replaced. They hold the flame of their torch to the lock, trying to melt it loose. There’s a shout they can’t recognize; words they don’t recall in the moment. It’s nothing but muffled yelling.

 

The lock hits the ground with a _thunk_. The shouts grow silent. They open the door, and slip inside.

 

The room is dark. The concrete beneath them feels familiar. In the back corner, they can see the faint shape of a huddled body.

 

 _Inari_.

 

Seven years . . . and she’s _here_. Their sister.

 

They reach out. “Inari,” they breathe, smile coming easy to their face for the first time in years. “I’ve come back for you-”

 

 _Smack_.

 

“GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME!”

 

They recoil with horror. Inari’s lurched forward; their hand hurts from being slapped back. She’s- _laughing_ , laughing in a place like _this_ , giggling madly. Alexei doesn’t know what to do, can only step forward again with a cold, gutless feeling under their ribs. “I- Inari? Inari, calm down. It’s _me_ . Aiko - your _family_. I’ve come back for you-”

 

“ _I don’t know an Aiko_ .” A gasp. “I have no family- I know _nothing_. Nothing but the Force-”

 

 _Ice through their chest_. They freeze. “What-”

 

“I AM MORE POWERFUL THAN THEY’D IMAGINE!” she screams, and she falls again, hitting her head against the floor with a _crack_ that makes their stomach turn as they scramble back, suddenly afraid. Inari’s laughing though, still laughing. She holds her head, face to the ground. She snickers, giggles, lets out a howl. “THEY CAN’T KEEP ME HERE! NEVER! IF ONLY THEY KNEW!”

 

“I-Ina . . .” they reach out to her again, though they can’t reach her from where their back is pinned to the wall. Their mind is racing - _no, no, this can’t be!_ “Ina, you aren’t . . . well. Please-” she giggles again, and they pull their hand back to grab at their collar. “No . . . _no_ , I wasn’t too late, I swear-! I wasn’t-!”

 

“They’ll find us both,” she murmurs, still facing the floor, voice going dull. “They’ll find us, they’ll make us both pay - I swear, I swear it, they will make us pay. This Imbalance is the end of us, of all of us. There is no mechanism to enact this change. Not for many years-”

 

There was a _reason_ they’d had to take inhibitors. Alexei remembers why. The doctors had told them, time and time again - anybody Force-sensitive, if left untrained, was prone to a loss of control and even insanity. That’s why the Jedi order and the Sith Academy were so rigid about training people. Alex had been lucky, they remember, _so lucky_ \- to have professionals who could treat them and keep them above ground. But without that sort of assistance, one could just- just sink through the crust of the earth, could descend, could succumb to nothing but . . .

 

 _Madness_.

 

Alexei puts a hand to their mouth as they slide down the wall. Their eyes are welling up with traitorous tears. Inari is still mumbling on the floor, weak, lying there like nothing but a corpse. And her words are raw, unclear, insane - even with their repressors, they can feel the Force through her eyes. It’s wild. It’s so much like their own.

 

But she has never been taught to restrain them. She never had repressors.

 

Osiris had warned them of the Force driving people insane. But it hadn’t been them he was talking about.

 

He had been talking about their sister.

 

A sob. It comes free of their chest, and they put a hand to it, trying to ward off tears. But they’re coming now, full and free, like a loose faucet. They barely know it as their hand presses to their chest place, and they tilt their head down and cry like a child. They know what they have to do - the only thing they _can_ do, lest she turn entirely incorporeal and nothing but a prisoner of half-body, half-mind. She could never leave this room. And it was far too late for her to seek training. She would’ve had to have been trained-

 

. . . and yet she’d stayed.

 

They had _made_ her stay.

 

It hits them like a stone wall, and they grit their teeth, and pull in breath after quick breath through their tears. They remember. They remember so clearly, begging not to leave Inari behind, _pleading_ not to be taken away from their sister. But the Sith had been so impatient, and Inari had been hidden so well. So the slavemaster had gotten tired, had grabbed the wine bottle and had the Sith hold them back as he aimed for their face . . .

 

And they were left _alone_. Their sister was left to suffer.

 

 _I want them to face the same fate my sister and I had to face alone. I want them to feel the_ weight _of this_ madness _._

 

Slowly, they rise to their feet. Inari has gone silent, lying against cold concrete, face pale. Alexei draws their blaster. It mirrors their dreams, as they point their blaster at Inari’s head, and make her their last promise.

 

“I’m going to avenge you, sister. I’m going to make them _suffer_.”

 

And then the shot goes off.

 

* * *

 

_He calls you powerful._

 

Irinei’s hand grasps feebly for the hilt of his lightsaber, the weapon tossed aside and trapped between the mess of floral overgrowth and ravaged, mangled bodies that lie spread like vines over the temple floor. The weight of a weapon in his hand is familiar, but does nothing to assuage his own fear and burning envy as he seethes into the void of his own peril.

 

_Says you aren’t like Zash. That you’re better. Smarter._

 

Each movement feels as though he’s walking through tar; the effort of dragging himself forward palpable, one hand braced on the wall and skin flayed from bone in too many places for Irinei to count. His body finds little in the way of momentum as he pulls himself around the corner and stumbles into the dilapidated stone corridor with a muffled scream and a harsh curse as his leg threatens to give, an abrupt surge of energy pouring through his body at the transition. The small, narrow passageway is more harrowing than it has ever been before-- cold enough to chill his blood and ripe with an aura of fear. Irinei can feel his brain rattling about within his skull, can sense the beat of his heart slowing, his vision distorted… disoriented. There are arms wrapped around his chest, creeping up his body, gnarled and bony things squeezing tight to his ribcage, suffocating the breath from his already feeble lungs.

 

_He lied._

 

The anger that so often surges inside Irinei’s veins can no longer be contained. It obscures itself from even the force for just a moment-- and then erupts, violently, beyond his control. A passionate centrifuge of chaos that pushes out in every direction at once as the former slave falls beneath the intensity of his own power, his mind crying _betrayedbetrayedbetrayed_ until it can cry no more. He can _feel_ everything-- the pain, the humiliation, the disillusionment with his own existence; a tight grasp on his hips and greedy fingers tugging at his skin, caressing and prodding and jabbing at him; mouths sucking marks into his neck and teeth sinking into his lips as he recoils and breathes in and tries to steady himself through the revulsion by focusing on his pain. The Force, swirling inside him and _penetrating_ ever deeper-- _I promise I’ll be good, won’t cry, won’t talk back no more_ while the man behind him continues to thrust into his body violently, the pressure of a body pressed atop his own causing his aching wrist to _snap_ and lay beneath his chest at an unnatural angle… a gag pushed into his mouth to quell the shouts after a knife is dragged through his cheek deeply enough to scar.

 

His body recoils from the violence of his thoughts, madness consuming him, giving him the _will_ to torment all within his reach.

 

Irinei wonders if _the Sith_ enjoy madness. He considers, perhaps, that Thanaton would not have tried to kill him if he realized the extent of his devolution, if he had known of his true face and utter insanity. Force lightning drains from his fingertips, from his heart, from his very _soul,_ electrocuting the earth and sparking violet with an abundance of unsaid desires and undesirable emotions. He lies on the ground, prostrate on his back as darkness encroaches upon his vision, the very vestiges of what he once was abandoned for...

 

_Blanket. Robe._

 

His ship is a mess, though Irinei does not fair any better, red eyes shadowed by deep bruises, silvery hair hanging haphazardly in his eyes, black robe askew as it slides down one brittle, tattooed shoulder. He is bruised and bloodied and cut to pieces when he finally sits up, loosing a sharp moan at the wondrous influx of pain. It processes as almost ridiculously _perfect,_ a drug he cannot get enough of no matter how hard he tries, better than sex and better than love and better than _murder_ all at once The blemishes twinge with hurt, too beautifully perhaps, and his arms wrap tight around his body, squeezing himself as if to determine whether or not he is real.

 

A mass of lines blurs in front of him, then comes together in a shrouded mist, and the image that the inquisitor is finally greeted with is one he never fathomed he would see again.

 

 _“You,”_ Irinei speaks, baffled.

 

“Yes,” his apparent _rescuer_ answers, back turned to the shuddering mirialan even as Irinei’s eyes flash dangerously. “I came back for you. I sensed…”

 

“It doesn’t matter.” Irinei stands and heaves the mass of blankets he’d found himself stuck with off of his body and onto the metal floor, shuddering with adrenaline. “I need to kill him. I need him _dead.”_

 

The other does not move.

 

 _“Take me back!_ I need him dead, he’s dead, he deserves to die, to suffer--”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Irinei doesn't have time to question the words; registers them just as a needle is pressed roughly into the back of his neck, just as his eyes flash red and the lightning sizzles in his palms again.

 

“I don’t have a choice, you know… you're too dangerous to be left on your own.”

 

* * *

 

 _Bloodshed_.

 

Everybody is dying. Every servant, every person sleeping, everybody who dares get in their way - _dead_ . Blaster shots and fire and gasoline against the floor, bodies coated in the slick oil from their jetpack and set alight to burn. Even the agents that break in when somebody sends them an alarm, even the children of the master, even the people they recognized through their stifled eyes - all come under their weapons, and they fling bodies to the floor, nothing more than cannon fodder. They’re covered in blood. Blood, blood _everywhere_ , coating their hands and dried across their face, slick across their lips as they find themselves straddling a cold body in somebody else’s bed, strangling the life from an old man’s neck as he reaches up with familiar fingers once around the bottleneck of a brew-

 

Blood. Spittle. Gasoline and sweat. They break through the house, searching for _him_ , the last man to make martyr for their own sins, _leaving her behind, committing an act of sororicide-_

 

They see a shadow across the hallway and they _know_.

 

“YOU!”

 

The man gasps and turns to run, but nothing stops them now, not the drugs in their veins and not a sense nor shred of morality. His body is thrown against the wall with a bone-shattering Force, the offender further dribbled between the walls of the hall and suddenly slammed to the floor before they even reach him. They grab him by his neck and clench bloody fingers against his windpipe as they lift him and take long strides to crush his body against the wall-

 

“ **_SSSSEEEEEEETH!_ ** ”

 

He coughs up blood. They _hit him_. One-sided, across one cheekbone, until it caves in and crushes against his eye. They listen to him scream.

 

“ **_YOU- RUINED- EVERYTHING-_ **!”

 

“YOU _BITCH_ !” he screams at them, but they punch him in the jaw and feel the teeth in his mouth give way. They throw him to the ground and ram their foot into his ribs. He screams again, louder as they keep kicking him, watching him writhe with wide-open eyes when something _cracks_ under their steel toe of their boot. They can feel it when they beat him again, and again, and again. His ribs are breaking.

 

They’re so _alive_.

 

“ **_YOU DESERVE TO DIE!_ ** ” they shout as they slam their foot down on his hollowing chest and pull out their blaster. “ **_YOU DESERVE TO SUFFER FOR WHAT YOU DID TO US-!_ ** ”

 

 _Blasts_ . Holes, screams, blood. It’s a cascade of noise and sensations. A cascade of _everything_ , and Alexei doesn’t blink, not once, through the whole thing. They watch as his body bursts with bloodstreams and bile. They watch as they riddle him with blaster holes.

 

They finally stop.

 

Alexei lowers their gun. They’ve finally stopped. No reason why. Their trigger finger hurts, is the only explanation. He’s barely recognizable, and most definitely dead. His blood is cooling on their boots, and their blaster. They feel, for the first time in a long time . . . safety. Serenity. Like they can finally feel present, and not lost in a sea of doubts and fears and the repression of the Force.

 

They can hear something down the hallway. They look up. It’s a woman and a child; it takes them no moment to recognize the look of the kid, his dark hair and blue eyes, like the corpse beneath their feet. And the woman, the child looks like the woman, too. It’s all far too clear.

 

Blood drips from their jawline, and from the muzzle of their gun. They raise their head, and point their blaster at them, even as Seth’s wife grabs the child and runs.

 

“Then this too,” they growl as they follow with burning eyes, “Shall be a mercy kill.”

 

* * *

 

“You… ruined-- e-everything…!” the Darth spits at him from the floor, arms wrapped tight about his own decrepit body, winded as he doubled over, lacerating wounds crisscrossing his torso and leaking blood over the ornate floor of the council room chambers. His lightsaber lies on the ground, cleaved apart by the Force itself. Darth Thanaton shakes in fury, his eyes glistening with the tell-tale wet expression of tears, hanging his head in seeming disbelief at his own harrowing defeat. Irinei can nearly hear his thoughts; _how dare this child surpass me, how dare this useless whelp, this_ whore, _take from me what is rightfully mine?_

 

 _Pathetic,_ the Inquisitor affirms, content in the knowledge that Thanaton may no longer be certain of his superiority, may no longer even _feel_ the remnants of superiority he thought he possessed.

 

Irinei has had enough of Sith games; first the Academy, and finally the Kaggath. Zash’s interference… Harkun’s scorn… dismissal after dismissal from the higher-ups who longed to use him as their plaything, countless betrayals of those he once deemed allies, their true face shown through their desire to push him back down to his supposed place, groveling in the mud on the streets of the underworld. But now, he finds that it hardly matters how many obstacles the Sith attempt to throw in his path-- that _slavers_ attempt to use to keep him shackled. Irinei is Sith, and he has decimated them all, _destroyed_ even the backbone of those who once dared to sneer at him and spit in his face. He has proven nothing, except how far darkness can bring those with nothing to lose and nothing to live for.

 

A cult worships his name.

 

An apprentice reveres his deeds, and from them, seeks to carve a path of destruction by the same means.

 

Irinei has secured his own glory by cutting down all who once stood in his path. The Dark weaves pathways through his body and lives within his veins as much as Kallig’s blood, as much as his slave heritage and every act of degradation he has endured, every act of pleasure carved into him with pain. He has conquered _all_ challenges thrown in his way by those who thought him lesser, and he will triumph over even greater foes in the future. He does not believe himself deluded to think that one day, he may conquer even the Dark Council, rising from the dirt and ascending the stairs of legend to sit on the throne as the galaxy’s Emperor. Irinei laughs; this is the future, and he can _feel_ it, he can see everything in the universe as it is, and he is going to _tear it to shreds._

 

He jams a bandage-covered fist into the grievous wound splitting his gut again for good measure, glaring into the eyes of each and every Dark Council member, focusing on their downed brethren knelt on the chamber floor, wrinkled face bathed in the light of Irinei’s hissing lightsaber.

 

The inquisitor reaches down with one hand, hooking his pale, spindly fingers beneath Thanaton’s jaw to tilt his head up, releasing a wry laugh.

 

“You said you sensed I had potential, did you not? That I was… better than Lord Zash?” Irinei grins. “That I corrupted Sith traditions, that my existence was a blight on the entire galaxy? That you, a worthless excuse for a Darth, were destined to hunt down a mere Sith Lord, an _alien_ nonetheless, because he was a _threat_ to the elitist power you hold so dear? I wonder why that is. Were you scared, Thanaton? Do I _scare_ you?” His lips twitch, pulling back at the corners as he crouches to press veiny, darkened lips to his enemy’s forehead, amused at how the man flinches away from the chaste contact.

 

“You are dead. I have been given the right to consume your spirit just as I’ve consumed so many others, taken them and bound them. Pleading and begging for mercy eon’t change my mind. This is my victory and I’m going to savor it.”

 

Irinei levels his lightsaber at the crook of the man’s exposed neck, readying his blade at the sideways glance of the council nodding in affirmation. With a single, clean strike, he brings down his executioner’s blade and cleaves Thanaton’s head from his shoulders, the lifeless lump falling off of his shoulder, rolling aside onto the floor with a mess of blood and gore strewn over his corpse from the open wound. The topmost bone of his vertebrae is visible inside the fleshy stump, signifying the fruits of his labor, the fate that awaits any who attempt to scorn the former slave.

 

Irinei spits on the corpse for good measure. Then, carelessly, he tosses his still-lit lightsaber to the ground, staring up at the faces of the council members.

 

“Good riddance to him,” Darth Ravage says, finally, standing to his feet. Marr shifts behind him, clearly perturbed.

 

“He was a better Sith than you give him credit for, Ravage.”

 

“Then let us hope his successor is as worthy.” Darth Mortis waves a hand, crossing the room to stand before Irinei with hands clasped behind his back, appraising when he looks the young Sith over. He steps aside, uncharacteristically reserved. “Your seat,” he says, finally. “My Lord.”

 

“But he is a Lord! And a former _slave,_ no doubt-- we cannot put this creature on the Dark Council. Especially without the rank of a true--”

 

“ _Quiet, Ravage!”_ Marr snaps, stunning the irate Sith into silence with the sharp tone of his voice. “He’s earned his place.”

 

Marr turns to walk back to his own seat, settling himself in the council head’s chair and tilting his head in acknowledgement to an open seat near his side, gesturing for the inquisitor to sit. His hands remain steady, relaxed casually on the arms of his seat, the mask over his face hiding any semblance of emotion with a domineering stoicism.

 

But still, he speaks.

 

“By order of the Dark Council, and in light of your reputation as a true Master of the Dark Side, you are now… Darth Nox.”  


Irinei ducks his head, suddenly hyperaware of the blood staining his robes, the madness still so clear in his eyes. But regardless of his apparent insanity, his power only simmers with excitement, a plague growing deadlier for every second it remains set in his body, his aura bleeding dark with the sadistic satisfaction and overt vanity he has exposed through Thanaton’s death.

 

“With us, you are a Ruler among all the Sith-- answerable only to the Emperor himself.”

 

The newly-named Darth Nox merely smirks. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”

 

* * *

 

They feel nothing.

 

The sun is rising over Hutta, but they feel _nothing_ . Not relief, not guilt, not happiness. Nothing but a void of feeling deep in their gut, their hands, their head. Stumbling out of the master’s house, all they feel is the blood sticky against their skin, the sweat down their forehead, and the clothes that cling to them. Even as they watch the slaves from the pit walk up towards the house, towards _them_ , they barely spare a glance, even for when they all stop and gasps go through the small crowd.

 

“ _Kriff_ . . .”

 

All of the slaves seem in shock. They aren’t surprised. All they can give the crowd is a dull look, through dull eyes. These don’t matter, they think; Alexei knows they could tell their former slaves how they did this for _them_ , to save _them_ , but it would be a lie. They have no more room for heroics in their blood, not anymore. All they have left is this curse of _InariInariInari_ and _Seth_ and the blood of that woman and her child on their hands. All they have is an exhaustion that weighs on their bones. All they have is the darkness that sticks to their ribs.

 

“Do I _scare_ you?”

 

They ask it quietly, evenly. The slaves don’t answer. They press their mouth into a thin line. Their voice is a croak.

 

“You’re all free. Do whatever the hell you want. I wasn’t here for you anyway.”

 

They reach back and pull up the hood to their uniform, and stuff their hands in their pockets as they turn to leave.

 

“Alexei?”

 

They stop. Alexei looks back to a man, an older man, who’d stumbled forward from the crowd. They recognize him. Recognize him with a fury suddenly coming ablaze in their eyes.

 

“Alexei, where’s . . . Inari?”

 

Emptiness. Nothing but a dark chill in their gut.

 

They draw their blaster as they speak.

 

“You promised to protect her. You _failed_ her. And now she’s dead.”

 

The shot rings out and the man drops. People scream. They don’t care.

 

They put their blaster away and turn back, walking away from the crowd and the life that they, eight years ago, had left behind.

 

“I’m answerable only to my own sins,” they murmur. “And if any of you talk - you’re _dead_.”

 

* * *

 

Remembering is like walking into the abyss of a void, being subsumed by the pitch aether of the galaxy itself, taken in and strung up and split apart by thin fabric and blunt metal stretching out each of his lips, pulling, tearing, rending...

 

Most of what Irinei remembers are fragments; bits and pieces of memories that his mind has yet to fully corrupt. The hazy glare of cantina lights and the way they cast his skin red and purple and gold as they flickered through different shades of iridescent neon. Being beaten, whipped raw as he was tied from waist to ankle and thrown down over his master’s desk… hands on his neck and in his hair, slamming his head into the flat metal and smashing his face against it until his nose broke and his lips bled… his body splitting open and severing itself as he was violated so brutally he'd thought his very insides were getting torn apart. He remembers being dragged into an empty back room after he’d spit in his master’s face-- a mixture of sticky blood, saliva and phlegm-- and having a gag stuffed in his mouth as his arms were strung up over his head, vulnerable and useless and a worn-out mess, left unable to pull the metal out from between his lips, no matter how much he tried to shout and curse and cry around it. The scars left across his cheeks from the incident never faded; a lasting consequence of the cost of _disobedience,_ a warning against ever trying to talk back or fight those who considered themselves to have power over him.

 

He remembers, too, what it was like to return to Nar Shaddaa, just a year after he had left the academy, months after being named as Zash’s second apprentice, envy for the powerful and wealthy leaving him rotten to the core and reminders of the past encouraging his bodily sickness as he drank in the cantinas and bled himself in the homes of one-night stands. Even better, Irinei had thought, for him to dismantle the streets and sectors of his hated homeworld himself, to make others _feel_ the pain which he had felt, to make them see that no matter what he had been, _he was the one with the power, their adversary, their superior, a pfaasking saint for pitiful creatures like himself to revere._ He had taken lust from bathing in the blood of the slaughtered Sith lord who had recruited him, from painting his face with the scarlet remains of his former slavers. The Cartel was sick, a twisted cesspool of surreal desire for wealth and pleasure. But nobody-- nobody but _him--_ had ever experienced true pleasure, that was certain. _His glory was unrivaled._

 

Darth Nox thinks of the bloody days which had borne his cult, his power base; dozens, even hundreds, of people left under his control, sentimental and desperate souls willing to bow before him in awe of his strength. Yet something in Irinei had wanted more, and Nox always wants more, _needs_ veneration, more than he would admit; he looks at the slave destroyed by violence and realizes that he is no longer the person he once was. In fact, Nox doesn't know if he could ever be _that child_ again. Irinei was naive. His face isn’t necessary, now.

 

 _Cruel,_ he whispers to himself under his breath, staring at the cloth drapings of the tent lit through by sunlight. _Clever. Snake. Monster. Murderer. Disobedient slave…_

 

A figure stirs from the mess of the bed roll beside him, stretching out with a groan and then ridding their body of blankets. The Yavin heat is already beginning to bear down on their skin, and Nox’s grey-green flesh is sticky with a layer of sweat. He glances to his companion, sighing in uncertainty.

 

“You've done well for yourself,” he finally murmurs, reaching over to tuck red hair back behind the other Sith’s ear, not bothering to smile. Nox isn't even certain when it was that he last smiled.

 

“You honor me, Darth Nox.”

 

“You honor yourself,” he whispers, and then twists himself at the waist to bend and lay a soft kiss against the rigid arch of Theiseike’s shoulder. “Will you return?”

 

“When you are Emperor,” the marauder whispered, reaching back to grip his hand and squeeze it gently. “You will know how to find me.”

 

“When I am _Emperor,”_ Nox mumbles, enjoying as always the taste of the title on his lips. But he is not a fool. The dream seems less likely every moment the war dredges on, and he is hardly a paragon of leadership, stability or trust. Perhaps Irinei would have been fit to lead, one day, but Nox’s paranoia has only given way to more insecurities, more… jealousy.

 

Still, no matter what he is, he is not without tenacity. And so Nox licks his lips and continues, “I am answerable to my own faults… but I will rule. I alone deserve the greatest power in the galaxy.”

 

* * *

 

The bag of credits clatters onto the desk.

 

“Your pay,” the man says, leaning back in his chair and kicking his feet up. “You’d better be lucky that was a swift kill, hunter. I’m not usually one to support a druggie, but you look like you need your fix.”

 

They resist the urge to roll their eyes. “I don’t need a ‘fix’. It’s how I always look,” they say. Still, the dark rings around their eyes, the pallor of their skin - they look the part. They swipe the bag up and peek inside to take a look at the pay, and though they can’t count very well on their own . . .

 

A “hmph” as the cybernetic over their eye gives a beep of confirmation. They stash it away in their bag. “It clears.”

 

“You think I’d rob you blind?”

 

“Not many men would pay this well for the assassination of a Sith Lord. Hell, many men wouldn’t even try.”

 

“Not many hunters would be up to the job.”

 

They roll their eyes and idly reach up and scratch the inside of one elbow. They’d fumbled with the needle the other day - the gash still bothers them, though it’s hidden under clothes. The buyer raises a brow at the action and crosses his arms.

 

“Y’know,” he mentions, “You look a little like a Sith yourself. It’s the eyes, y’know? And the pallor. You sure you haven’t trained on Korriban?”

 

“They tried,” they mention idly. Alexei vaguely notices their nails digging into their shirt. “Simply put: they failed. Never tried again. I’ve no interest in giving them the chance.”

 

“You should rethink. You alone could hold the greatest power in the galaxy,” he tosses his head back and laughs. When they don’t move, he stops laughing, and frowns instead. He points the door. “Our business here is finished. Now get out of my office.”

 

“As you say,” and they nod their head before turning and walking out. “Thanks for the credits, asshole.”

 

They wish Dromund Kaas had a sunrise, they think to themselves as they walk out of the shop and into the street. Maybe then it’d look less bleary, less hopeless. They took too many jobs from Kaas City overall, and they’d been here for weeks. It was time to move on to someplace new - maybe someplace with some nicer weather, too. At least the darkness conceals them, hiding them away when they slide into a back alley and pull a needle from their bag.

 

As irritating as it feels, Osiris was right - it’s becoming harder and harder for the repressors to work on their own. The patience it takes just to do an injection is trying enough, and they don’t last as long either - only a day, maybe a few hours depending where they are or the company they keep. They cringe as they press the needle to their arm and push it in. Already they can feel the Force welling up inside their chest cavity, trying to push the medication out, but they grit their teeth and push the plunger.

 

 _Relief_. They sigh and pull the needle loose as the feeling fades, not minding the beads of blood that well up on the surface of their skin. They’d reopened some old marks, they think. Alexei puts the needle away and rub at their arm, smearing the blood over their skin. It’s a haunting familiarity, and almost a comfort.

 

“Don’t see many pretty ladies out here taking needles to themselves. Well - most of them are noblewomen anyway.”

 

They glance up from their arm as a man saunters down the alley towards them, only to lean next to them on the wall. They scoff, and pick up their bag. “I’m not an addict, not like you. And for the record, I’m not a woman.”

 

“Yeah, because those tits and the pretty yellow eyes say different.”

 

“Say what you want, I could still kick your ass. And regardless of _that_ , some of us are actually sick,” they put their fingertips to their eyes, sunken with exhaustion, and sigh. “The hell do you want with me anyway? Or have I intruded on your hangout? You getting ready for a rave or something?”

 

“Hey, I’m just curious, ma’am. Like I said, never see pretty-”

 

“If you call me a ‘lady’ again, I’ll knock your lights out.”

 

“Sounds like some real restraint there, buddy. I imagine the blasters are there for a reason,” he nods to them. “Y’know, you could put good work to ‘em on Hutta. Heard there was a team-”

 

“I work _alone_ ,” they heft the bag over their shoulder and give him a glare before walking away. “Have a good high, or whatever.”

 

“You too!” he shouts back. They vaguely consider going back and punching him after all, but keep walking instead.

 

* * *

 

There is a Jedi before him who wears his face, albeit darker and with far different lines of ink-- but Venereth cannot help but want to tear it off of him all the same.

 

The Jedi is bent over on half-broken legs, his broader, lithe-muscled chest a mess of open wounds and deep bruises, emerald flesh flayed and turned half yellow with the encroach of bruises and carbonite decay. He wears a white robe, open and loose, far from adequate in providing his body protection against an enemy. With unbound arms, it is easy to see just how broken his body has become after his time spent in prison swollen; hands swollen up through his forearm and flesh torn bloody at the wrists where magcuffs dug in too deeply.

 

The Jedi does not speak as he watches the Sith approach. He draws a bated breath, body still as a statue atop a blighted battleground, strong despite the crumbling mortar of its base.

 

Slaughtered guards line the Sith’s path, along with the remains of unrecognizable prisoners, Imperial and Republic alike. Darth Nox drops the bloodied satchel still within his hand to the ground, watching the half decomposed head of a Republic general tumble across the stone to bump soundly against the Jedi’s knee. The other Mirialan does not flinch.

 

“You lived…” his brother mumbles with a parched throat, rasping weakly as the man who was formerly Irinei seizes his body with the force and spirits him across the ground with a single, angered motion. “Irinei--”

 

“That is not my name.”  the Darth responds, cutting off the Consular’s empty protest, a red lightsaber flaring to life within his hands. And truly, it was no longer; he was power itself, now, with all the might of a madman mourning his lost identity and drowning his sorrows with masochism and false pride.

 

"You know," Venereth begins, transfixed by the sight of the disheveled heap of a man on the floor, prostrate on his knees, lines of crimson smeared across his face. The Barsen'thor's eyes are wide, the grey orbs impossibly light even in the embrace of his fear; green skin, so much more lovely now than his own veiny, decaying features, can be seen where the Sith has torn his tunic from his shoulders, and his white hair falls around his face like a halo, damning Venereth as it accentuates all of Isosei's fairness, his-- goodness.  
  
"You know..." Venereth repeats, grasping the Jedi's chin between his bony fingers, a black nail pressed firmly into his throat just beneath the jut of his jaw, his own lips drawn back in a snarl of barely contained enmity. "For the longest time I had to wonder why they chose _you._ What made you so much better than me, Barsen'thor? Did they think you stronger? Was it some blind whim, a false vision of destiny? Why the pfaask did you get to be the one saved? Delivered from _pain,_ bought out of slavery by our father? I used to lie in bed for hours, sleepless, asking myself that very question-- have ever since I was unfortunate enough to find out that you were still alive. So _answer me._ Why you? Don’t you know? Can’t you tell me?”  
  
Isosei splutters, a stream of blood leaking out from between his pursed lips when he emits a violent cough, attempting to wrench his head from the Sith's painful grasp to no avail. "I-Irinei..." he gasps. "They told me you... died, that you were gone, Mother told them you were gone, I--" His mumbling is strained and borderline incoherent, the well-muscled arms slack at his sides doing nothing to try and shield his body from his twin’s murderous rage anymore. "I never... I didn't know. You're my _brother_ . I would've-- never given.... given up searching--"  
  
"Spare me the sob story, _Jedi_ ," Darth Nox cackles, sinking nails through the bruised ligaments and scarred tendons of Isosei's shoulder, gouging deep inside his brittle skin. "I may be your brother, but I am a slave all the same to you. _Once a slave, always a slave…_ regardless of whether I am a Sith or a whore."  
  
A haze of static swirls about Darth Nox’s fingertips, dancing across his sibling's skin, up along his firmly-held jaw to the open gash on his temple, still oozing blood. Venereth smiles, the glint of his teeth between those chapped, grinning lips callous and spiteful while he grants himself another few moments to revel in the sight of his long-lost brother trapped within his clutches; saved from slavery, and returned to him only to die.  
  
"But," he muses. "I am also an Emperor. So, Barsen'thor, who cares if you're my brother? You'll make a lovely decoration for my future throne room."

 

His bloodlust is all encompassing, and nothing, dead or alive, will remain free from the reach of it; Venereth imagines that Revan is tossing in his grave, that Thanaton would be gripped with egocentric fury, that Zash would be chuckling, telling him to _kill_ the brittle Jedi before him with a kind smile and comforting tone. He smoothes back Isosei’s hair, resting his hand over the consular’s forehead; then he lets his rage loose.

 

Lightning sparks from his fingertips and envy gives him strength. He barely flinches when he takes Isosei’s life, when he destroys the _beloved, perfect, good twin,_ the _better_ of himself that he had never wanted to know.

 

He tells himself that he feels nothing, but Isosei’s spirit lingers. Venereth is not meant to regret.

* * *

 

 

 _Mirroring vision. Chemical decay. Burning, acrid burning, blood down the arms, foaming at the mouth_.

 

They can’t stand it. Can’t stand - hit the ground. Skin their face against gravel. Try to push up on weak arms. Can’t. Fall flat against the ground again. Cough. It’s blood from their lips. Oxygen fleeing their lungs.

 

They gasp. Their chest caves in. They cough again, violent, violent like their desires. Curling inwards, protecting their fragile body, their brittle bones. The world spins. Colors dance in swarms, cloud their eyes-

 

“Ma’am-!”

 

 _You. Not you. Nobody. Don’t help a slave. I’m a slave. I’m a whore. I’m useless. Useless. Can’t even control myself. Back away. Back away, I’ll kill you too_ -

 

Shaking. Somebody shaking their shoulders. They roll onto their back. Groan. Hiss. Cry out, blood and pressure on their arm. Words, unclear, blurry. They close their eyes. Their head wants to spin.

 

“Needle,” they hear, and they cry out, curl in again, cover their arms. _Not again_. Played - played for a fool, a druggie. Too high to help themselves. Their head pounds, their heart throws itself into the lining of their ribs. Another cough. More blood over their lips. So much blood.

 

A hand to their head. They gasp. It’s warm. Arms, gathering around them, lifting them. They’re flying. Flying. Held close. Been too many years. Lightyears away.

 

“Safe,” they hear. “Rest, you’re safe. I’ve got you.”

 

_Lies. Lying, scheming, demons. He never stops. He’ll never stop. Kill him again. Kill him until he’s dead._

 

Black.

 

Nothing.

 

* * *

 

The Empire calls Valkorion a monster, and the resolute understanding of his power only adds depth to the accusation that he is. Lana, pragmatic as she claims to be, has assumed since the first day she learned of his presence in Venereth’s mind that he seeks to poison it and use the former Darth for his own means. The alliance speaks only of the former Sith Emperor’s cruelty, his _narcissism,_ without recognizing the benevolence which underlies each aspect of his being. None of them truly understand, nor are they capable of realizing the truth; Venereth and Valkorion are beings of a similar mind and a similar hatred. They always have been.

 

Venereth cannot begin to count the number of planets he has raided, the number of cities and villages and encampments which he has razed to the ground during his campaign for restitution and retribution over the sins which he has suffered and the agony which is always inside him. He cannot even fathom how many enemies he has found within his time, how many heads he has severed from bodies, how many lives he has cut short torturing for information. He remembers his first torture, years earlier in the Sith Academy, holding an acolyte on a slab as he shocked him time and time again for information. It seems so long ago... and yet his memory of that first blood is as vivid to him as though it had happened mere days earlier.

 

The inquisitor knows that trust is a rare commodity of any sort, and as such it is no surprise that he does not allow _trust_ in others, be they advisors or friends-- or closer still. Venereth hardly even trusts himself, wandering off in disoriented moments of fugue, prone to fits of periodic madness where he will ramble and rave and rip open the vessels of any who dare cross him. Looking upon the throne makes his heart _ache_ and tremble with a covetous brand of greed that he has never before known. He thinks of what it would be like, to put a crown upon his own head, and shudders with delight. Valkorion had promised him strength, promised him _control_ over something in a galaxy where control had always seemed a fantasy-- and he will have it.

 

But something within him begins to falter when he kills Vaylin.

 

It happens when she is at the end of his blade, the disgraced Empress staring up into his eyes and cackling, screaming at her father, at her mother and her brother who stand idly on the sidelines in waiting as she falls. Her power is uncontrollable, all encompassing, and similarly insane in a way that Venereth is intimately attuned to. The madness makes her eyes surge with brightness even as he pushes the crimson blade of his lightsaber deep into her chest, wrenching it free once Vaylin falls to her knees throwing her head up and spitting at him to curse his very existence.

 

 _We are more alike than you know, Outlander! You will suffer! Father, Mother--_ all _of you will suffer!_

 

She sounds so like himself that Venereth begins to laugh for the first time in what seems like years.

 

“Oh, Vaylin. If only you knew just how deeply I enjoy our little chats.”

 

Venereth’s hand falls atop her head, stilling as the chaotic spiral of an eternity of madness flares to life, desperate to consume them both; Vaylin grits her teeth and screams, a resounding war cry rife with pure hatred for the galaxy and what hell it has put her through. Venereth does not counter it; he drinks it in until his own contempt has been satisfied, satiated only once the Empress lies twitching on the ground, life drained from her husk of a body.

 

 _Now I am Emperor,_ he muses as he grows paler, as his bones ache from the torment inflicted upon them and he gazes down at Vaylin’s empty husk of a body, eyes dull and glassy in a mirage of death. _Now I have finally chained eternity._

 

* * *

 

The bed isn’t familiar. No bed is, really. Alexei never slept anywhere with a bed, for fear of recognition. But no; this is a bed, a real bed, with blankets over their body. Feels warm, safe-

 

 _Their armor is gone_.

 

They sit up with a jerk and their body heaves. They resist the urge to vomit and start coughing into their sleeve instead. Their head _hurts_ ; there are scabs on their hands they don’t recall when they bring them to cover their mouth instead. They’re covered in blood similarly, over their face and under their sleeves. But at least they’re clothed, still protected - a small blessing. They stop coughing and gasp, dropping their hands to try and look around.

 

“You’re up.”

 

Their eyes settle on him across the room, sitting on a desk. They don’t remember him; they’re still in a haze. Black hair, loose shirt, scars across his pale hands. Imperial accent. Vaguely handsome, though young. He looks worried and haunted. Like he’s seeing something they aren’t.

 

Alexei wouldn’t be surprised. They didn’t look into mirrors anymore.

 

They groan as they pull their legs over the side of the bed, weak as they are, yet the moment they try to stand, he’s crossing the room and pushing them back down.

 

“Don’t stand yet, ma’am. You still look like death.”

 

“I always look like death,” Alexei says. They’re so damn dizzy; they don’t have the strength to resist him. That’s dangerous.

 

“You looked worse in that alleyway - bet you don’t remember any of it. Saw you taking a hit from a local dealer - known to be a scammer, and now selling poisoned spice to those unaware. Contacted city securty on him and then followed you. Whatever you asked for, it’s not what he sold you. You just went on a roller coaster.”

 

Drugs. Somebody had- hadn’t sold them repressors. They’d been _tricked_. And usually they looked so closely at the vials, could recognize the precise color and texture of their medicine - but they’d been so tired lately. They nearly fall over as they grip their head, still struggling to remember a thing.

 

“You’re at my place,” the stranger says as they curl in further on themselves. “You’re safe. Still in Kaas City. I’m a decent enough cook, and there’s a fresher you can use, too. That and some rest, and you should feel better.”

 

“What’s the _point_ ?” they ask. He doesn’t answer. They sit back, rubbing at their eyes, forcing back the tears that threaten to spill over their lashes. “Nothing _matters_ , okay? My sister is dead. I have no home and no friends. I have _nothing_ \- nothing but a record I kill to erase. You should’ve left me to die in that alleyway. Would’ve been a better fate than this monotony of murdering and fucking just to hide the pain.”

 

They’re crying. Not sobbing, no, but the tears are streaming down their face. They can’t stop them; Alexei puts a hand to their eyes and lets their body shake. The man is silent as he watches them. Just letting them cry themselves out, they think. _And then he’ll pin me down and rip off the rest of my clothes and-_

 

“You’ve been through an ordeal,” he says. They nod, but they don’t uncurl, not yet. Still, he continues. “I wouldn’t know anything about living for any of that. But I do know about not having much to follow. Me, I just graduated from training for intel. Most important people in my lives are gone. But there’s _got_ to be _something_ worth it, right? If the world meant for you to die back there, then it wouldn’t have let me notice, right? If it meant for you to die, you’d be dead by now. You don’t live to adulthood without a purpose in this world.”

 

“I’ve always been the exception,” they whimper. A sob finally breaks loose. They pound at their chest with their fist until their breath loosens up again.

 

“I don’t think so. I think you looked like a warrior, even when I found you. I think you’re destined for greater things. I’m certain” he pauses. They can feel his hand on their shoulder. “You sound like a bounty hunter. You should join the Great Hunt; it’s something the Mandalorians put on. Maybe that’ll lead somewhere. Either way, it’s better than giving up before you’ve started.”

 

It’s too much. Too much all at once, with their head pounding and their body still covered in filth. They shake their head, and finally lower their hands. When they look up, the man’s staring at them with something akin to compassion in his eyes - something they haven’t recognized in years. They sniffle, and wrap arms around themselves.

 

“I feel so _awful_ ,” they say. He nods, and reaches around them to help them to their feet.

 

“I know,” he says. “But I’m here now, and I’ll fix what I can. You will be powerful again. I promise.”

 

* * *

 

 

In the filtered smoke of the blood-shaded cantina light Venereth looks powerful.

 

… more than powerful, less than real-- he looks like death.

 

Irinei Jivai had spent years searching for himself, decades over decades, possibly even longer. His rise to infamy began as Darth Nox, but his story began as a defiant, angry child, seething in the work pits of a Hutt’s palace. Venereth clawed his way out from the Empire’s slave pits and fucked, manipulated and massacred his way to the top of the galaxy. He can hardly deny that he has surpassed everyone’s expectations of himself and what he was meant to be, nor that the crown nestled in his silvery-grey hair belongs on his head more than any other. Yet despite his triumphs, he is still _yearning._ There is a part of him, deep within the heartless charm of his chest, that feels hollow…  a part of him that remains incomplete.

 

Venereth has torn too many pieces from his spirit, splintered his soul and tossed out the remnants of his true character for the sheer sake of being _in control._ He has fought both tooth and nail, with blade and fist and the sacrifice of countless numbers from his own people, to gain power. To be, at long last, a _force_ with which no mortal could recon. But now he is not simply corrupted; his need to gratify his own emptiness has left his character to fester and drown inside a bottomless pool filled with loathing, jealousy and paranoia. He is not an immortal emperor, nor is he _godlike;_ he is only _wretched_ . The _Malevolent Emperor_ , not good enough to even exist as a second coming of Vitiate, and far too _naive_ to exist on his own terms.

 

Venereth is nothing. As he has always been nothing.

 

He cannot control his mistrust of his own friends, cannot keep himself from flying off the handle in rage at the _questioning_ of troops, advisors and companions. His paranoia encompasses every waking moment of his days, and Venereth loses himself to the throes of dwindling sanity with which he is plagued, unable to stomach his own thoughts, much less the loneliness bestowed upon him as he consumes and binds his enemies... damning himself to the lifeless and _lightless_ immortality he is certain Zash had so desired.

 

In order to feel whole, Venereth conquers planets-- murders evermore beings and gorges himself on their suffering until he is so bloated with power and drunk on the terror which it brings him that he does not understand how to stop. He craves the ecstasy he so often felt as Darth Nox, lingering in thoughts filled with recollection of the mania and pride he would feel after torturing his oppressors and silencing blasphemers who dared to speak against him.

 

Venereth does not enjoy such fruitless killing anymore; murder is a task, common and lowly. Speeches have become a chore that both bores and irritates him. He is jaded beyond measure; perhaps the irony is a fitting conclusion to his unwanted legacy.

 

He is trapped as a slave to his own responsibility. Venereth has all the power a being could ever desire and remains with absolutely nothing of himself.

 

* * *

 

They had a gap in their memory. They had lots of those, from nights spent drinking and partying their memories away, but this one was more recent: some guy had given them bad drugs, and they’d completely blacked out, collapsed in some alley and woke up in a cantina room. Couldn’t get any answers from the cantina staff other than they’d stumbled in and bought a room the night before with a fine-looking man they’d assumed was their husband, or maybe their brother. They can still feel safety between their legs, at least, but it was disturbing to forget, to have so little memory of such a big thing. They can’t even remember the dealer that drugged them. Normally the face of such a scumbag would stand out so they could make him pay later.

 

They suppose it doesn’t matter, at least not that much. Still, it’s all that distracts them on the fleet, trying to maneuver through the crowd to their next shuttle. They’d missed their first chance off of Dromund Kaas thanks to whatever-the-fuck happened, and the bounty that was waiting for them in Taris was going to expire soon. They aren’t planning on missing it. At least, that’s what they’re thinking when a hand suddenly falls heavy on their shoulder.

 

“Easy there-”

 

Too late. They’d tossed his hand off and turned, blaster out and pistol-whipping the intruder across the face. Alexei points their blaster at the man’s head and growl out-

 

“Back _off_ , asshole.”

 

“Hey, no need for that! That was . . . a hell of a reaction,” the man says as he rubs at his head, on one knee - somehow a _lot_ stronger than Alexei would’ve predicted. He’s an older gentleman - balding, wearing a uniform similar to theirs, though far-less armored. Somebody of _their_ field. Alexei grimaces; if this was a client, they fucked up. Still, they don’t apologize, though they do stip back and let him rise.

 

“I don’t like being touched,” they punch out.

 

“I should’ve figured,” he says as he continues to rub his head. His eyes are trained on their face - appraising them, it seems. “My apologies, my jumpy friend, but you look like a hunter. I was hoping for a moment of your time.”

 

They look up at the clock. Ten minutes to the hour. “You get two minutes,” they snarl, “And then I’m out.”

 

“Understood. My name is Braden - and you’re Alexei Wright. Overheard your name through some personal channels and recognized you off the shuttle from Dromund Kaas. I’m putting together a team for the Great Hunt and thought I’d clue you in. Ever heard of it?”

 

A bell goes off in the back of their mind, but it’s not one they remember. They frown. “No, I haven’t. And you shouldn’t know me.”

 

He waves the last comment off. “In this industry, you keep track of the competition - and the potential allies. Anyways, I’m not surprised you haven’t heard - Mandalorians haven’t held a Hunt in a long time, and it’s fairly esoteric. Well, the Great Hunt is an event that pits the best bounty hunting teams against one another - a fight to the death, and for the glory of its title and rewards. Me, I’ve set up a team on Hutta. Good group - Jory’s an upstanding guy and Mako’s a tech wizard - but we’re missing a _hunter_. And you look like you fit the bill.”

 

“Really,” they say, narrowing their gaze. “You seem brave enough and dumb enough to step in front of a bullet or two.”

 

“Maybe a few years ago. Not in the best shape now. Now I’m in charge of connections.”

 

“I’m not a connection you want to make, if you know my reputation.”

 

“All the more reason for you to help us. We’ve got a place in Hutta - no, no, hear me out. It’s a good little place to do business, where we’ve set up. Place to sleep, bounties to collect, sponsorships to earn. You’ll make a name for yourself,” he says, “If you decide to come along.”

 

The Great Hunt. True, it sounded more like a suicide mission more than anything, but it sounds interesting enough. And the promise of more bounties helped that, death or not. But Hutta? That planet _again_? They scowl. They haven’t lowered their blaster, they realize, and carefully lower it a few inches. “Hutta,” they say, “Isn’t a big fan of me.”

 

“We’re set up in Jiguuna,” Braden insists. “And we can cover up any ends you want hidden.”

 

They sigh. He was making an argument that was hard to beat. They glance at the clock. They’d let him go overtime - one minute before the Taris craft took off. They look back to Braden. He looks like a man with charisma, confidence - even hope. A man looking at them as _more_ than a job title, but as a _person_. It’s . . . strange to see that from somebody. They hadn’t had that from somebody since Osiris.

 

A chance at credits, a better name, and a crew. Only risking certain death.

 

 _Well_ , they think - _isn’t that what I’m running towards anyway?_

 

Alexei finally sighs, and lowers the gun the rest of the way.

 

“Fine,” they say. They watch Braden’s eyes light up and cut in, “But if I get bored, then I’m out. Got it?”

 

“I can promise you, you won’t get bored,” he says with a smile. “This is the deal of a lifetime, Alexei Wright.”

 

They feel a strange blush rise to their cheeks. Nobody referred to them by their full name, _ever_. “Alex,” they finally settle on. “Just . . . call me Alex.”

 

“Alex. I promise, my dear, your name will be famous before you know it,” he says as he holds out his hand to them. They stare, for just a second, hesitating one last time - and then they take it.

 

And they let him lead them to someplace looking a little more like hope.

 

* * *

 

The name Darth Nox quickly passes into infamy, nothing but a title belonging to an undead spirit; a name the children on Nar Shaddaa would have whispered amongst themselves in fits of giggles as they took turns daring each other to call out to as proof that they weren’t scared.

 

Darth Nox is regarded as one of the most ruthless Sith to exist under the banner of the Empire; his title has become the name of a madman, an uncontrollable lunatic who ate ghosts and punished even the most innocent of creatures for so much as daring to look upon him. Darth Nox was a savage, cruel _predator,_ strong enough to subsume even the Sith Emperor. Darth Nox was feared, scorned and hated-- but Darth Nox no longer exists. He died unmourned, if not forgotten, and he has no legacy to continue.

 

Venereth is the Emperor now, and he has no past, regardless of what name he once carried. Some call him a tyrant, scorning his barbarism and mocking his paranoid fanaticism, critical of his loathing for diplomacy and his violent warmongering, though the last part remained a sheer fabrication; Venereth had hardly done enough to warrant criticism in recent months.

 

Others merely thought him useless; he, like Vitiate, seemed more of a stain on Sith history than a beloved ruler, alien filth whose existence would simply be wiped from the records when he finally perished. Perhaps both were correct; perhaps neither were. Venereth, to himself, is nothing more than a self-loathing and desperately unstable recluse. A slighted whore and a demanding boy that has reinvented his being so many times his true self no longer exists. His rule has been a cursed dream, his loneliness an enchantment from which he cannot break free.

 

He has nothing but his misery.

 

But even the smallest flame can cause massive destruction over time; and after years of burning bridges with his useless past, Venereth comes face to face with the mirror that he least expected. He meets Alexei Wright years past his first century; Grand Champion of the Great Hunt, a formidable and fearsome bounty hunter struggling to make their way through the perils of the galaxy. To him, they ought to have been little more than a single droplet in a sea composed of billions, for what meaning should a mercenary have to an Emperor, and what should an Emperor’s name mean to a gun-for-hire with no allegiance to his dominion?

 

The first echo of their existence came in the form of a clatter, as their gun leaves their hand and falls to the dirty metal of a cantina room floor while Venereth rips his lightsaber from where it’s been jilted inside a Jedi’s chest. Vibrant, seeping organs lay spread over the floor around him, entrails strewn over grey panels and the Mirialan’s sickly green pallor stained with the remaining gore. Black robes hang loose on a malnourished frame, even secured tight to his flesh as they were, and when he turns his head, he greets Alexei with a corpse’s glower, eyes the dullest, most diseased red that they have ever been--

 

His mouth slips shut, eyelashes like cobwebs brushing regal cheekbones, the silver and black circlet he wears in place of a crown loosely perched on his head. The fringes of his embroidered black, red and gold robe brushes against the ground as he steps forward, loose hems settling back in place over bony hips, secured to a frail waist by a silver belt inlaid with the symbol of the Empire.

 

The Emperor quirks a brow when he notices the mercenary standing behind him, slipping his saber back into his robes, apathy weighing on melancholic features.

 

“Ah, a newcomer. Well, I suppose it isn’t my problem. I assume you came for that creature’s head, and it's far from my station to stop you. I'll be on my way.”

 

The sight alone is enough to make their own blood run cold. Organs and body fluids cover every surface. It’s nearly as bad as the massacre they’d committed nearly six years ago. The reminder is almost enough to send them into it again with those narrow halls and the darkness only lit up by their blaster fire - and then they steel themselves and come back into their mind, and frown.

 

“So,” they ask with sarcasm heavy in their deep voice, “Is this some kind of party I missed out on? Or was this just for the hell of it?”

 

It couldn't be personal - they didn't even know him - but it _feels_ personal. Alexei keeps their eyes on the Mirialan, obviously a Sith, as they kneel down and collect their blaster. He lets them; they should be worried about that, but Alexei didn’t make it their business to understand the workings of Sith. Not anymore.

 

“ _So_ ,” they press out as they stand up again and clutch their blaster tightly in their hand. “I’m not going to pretend to be _surprised_ at a Jedi-Sith dispute, but did it need all the organs? Or was this personal?” they tilt their head to one side, and then lift an arm, pulling it across their body in an awkward stretch. The gunshot they’d taken to their shoulder still hurt after two weeks, dammit, and Mako insisted it’d heal with time, but gods be damned, Bloodworthy would be putting them on another chase across a barren wasteland soon, and they have to _recover_ , dammit.

 

“As personal as it needed to be,” Venereth cryptically replied, neither affirming or denying the question. He nudged the Jedi’s lacerated side with the toe of his boot, jamming the black tip into the wound enough for it to audibly squelch. Without looking at them again, the Emperor raises his head to stare out the broken window, glass reflecting glittering neon signs and flashing lights on the promenade outside. In this lighting, the corruption and decay of his body is more ethereal than ever, and though the color makes his body seem more alive, the unsettling aura of Nox remains in his eyes, half lidded and lustful. “He had something of mine. A… keepsake. And worse, he made the mistake of taunting me with it.”

 

Oh, well wasn’t this a delight. Two Force-users in a pissing competition - with deadly consequences. For not the first nor the last time, they thank their stars they never went to Korriban. The Sith carries himself like he’s big shit, but Alexei’s already learned, they can stand on par with Sith. Most of it was just posturing around like peacocks.

 

“So,” they point out, none too subtle, “You proved you were above such nonsense by splattering him halfway around Nar Shaddaa. Classy,” they pause, and look him over. “You’re right - I _was_ after his head, though it seems there’s nothing that remains of it. And for the record, if you’re trying to be scary, you’re failing - I’ve seen worse just by looking in a mirror.” They look over the wreckage. “Well,” they muse, “I wonder if my client will take a kidney in place of a heart. Similar enough.”

 

“I didn’t need to prove anything, nor did I do this to assert my power,” he told them, lips curling into a soft and uncharacteristic facsimile of a smile. Venereth glances to the ground once more, ducking his head in acquiescence to the bounty hunter. “I did this… because I could. Because I wanted to. There was nothing more to it; nor did I need there to be. Take whatever you came for and leave, child. I was rather admiring the view before my silence was rudely interrupted.”

 

“ _Child_ ? _Copaani mirshmure'cye, dar’manda_ ?” they snarl and tighten their grip around their blaster. Posturing like a peacock was one thing, but treating them like a child was another. They had enough of that with Tarro Blood! “Maybe you can cut it out with the _inferiority complex_ before I challenge you to a duel of our own. Or is a few years really so important to you and your pride?”

 

“Hit a bit of a sore spot, did I? _”_ the Emperor teased his finger across his own lips, licking blood off of his blackened nail, then shrugged. “Your age means nothing to me. Twenty three, I believe? A sparse few credits from within this bag. I am well over a century old. I have _seen_ more than you could likely imagine, given your incomparable lifetime. I can tell that you have experienced _much,_ hunter, so do not see my words as a slight. You’re clearly jaded. But you are still _young.”_

 

“I’ve been taught - and learned well - that years do not compare to deeds,” they hiss back at him. Who was this punk anyway, the Emperor?! “I’ve seen more than you would ever dream of. Slave pits, the gutters of Kaas City, the ever-failing decay of this planet. I’ve wrestled myself from the bottom of a Hutt’s cash pile and _on top of it_ , and stand among the- _why am I telling you this?!_ ” they slap a hand against their face and toss up their hand with the blaster before holstering it and turning away. “Oh, forget about it. I’m leaving. Keep your damn credits and your cranky posturing. I’ll find another bounty to pocket.”

 

“You assume correctly that in your lifetime you've seen more than I had at your age,” Venereth sits down on the windowsill, resting his back against the broken glass, wind ruffling his hair as he leans back just enough to feel the chill of it along his spine. “But I have experienced this world to the fullest… and I once lived in this very place.”

 

He trails his fingers along a crack in the wall just beside his head, frowning after a moment as _sentimentality_ begins to set in. “I was taken into this room hundreds of times. Perhaps even thousands. Made to entertain my master’s guests. Told to cater to their every whim, whether they wanted to cut me, belt me, use me, pass me around among their friends. Make me degrade myself alongside one of mine. I don't think there’s a place in this room that my body hasn't been pinned to or fucked against. At least… when it still held its splendour, that is. Never underestimate the Cartel’s opulence-- though I dare say the years have done this place an improvement. It was far too gaudy before. I'm sure if Aralik’reen was still alive, she’d have agreed with me.”

 

He doesn't seem to be talking to them as much as himself, hasn't even managed to tear his glance from his dirty hands since their words hit his ears. So it surprises Venereth more than it likely does the hunter when he raises his head and smiles at them, rueful. “You should stay. If you want. I didn't come for the bounty, and-- well. I have what I wanted, now.

 

They stopped when he spoke. Spoke words they were all too familiar with, though distant and disconnected. Seth, the slave pits, the drunken fucks they’d taken after it all just to distract themselves. Even the need for pain as a way to burn off some of the _restlessness_. It echos in their ears and connects. And then they give a single laugh.

 

“ _Unbelievable_. If Mako were here, she’d be pissing herself,” they muse as they finally turn back to him and lean their hip against one of the few cantina tables that’s still upright. They don’t smile, or smirk. Instead they meet the Sith’s eyes with a tone of seriousness that they reserve only for the most sensitive of situations.

 

Just like this.

 

“ _You’re the Emperor_ ,” they say - not an accusation, but a statement of fact. “Emperor Venereth, ruler of the Empire since you cut down Empress Acina, only brought upon her station following the death of Vitiate,” they cross their arms and give him a brief bow of the head. “Turns out the history lessons were good for one thing - stories told to an ex-slave to remind them of their strength in a galaxy where an outcasted whore became ruler and tyrant. Though, if what you say is true, I don’t blame you for taking it out on the bodies and blood of others. I did that too. Once.”

 

He finally looks at them-really looks, taking in their armor and muscle, the cybernetics implanted in their face, the androgynous shape of their silhouette and the strength their armor does nothing to add to or obscure. Venereth taps his chin, curious. Attentive. And more so-- unfrozen. _Needing._ Like the simple gift of a mere mercenary’s attention had thawed the callousness which had overtaken his heart and momentarily cured him of his disease, never mind the black sickness that dribbles from the corner of his mouth and spills over his lip, nor the sudden weakness in his hands.

 

“Tell me,” he says to them, “about yourself. Tell me who you are. _Please._ I need to know. I need--”

 

“Huttese slave,” they say, tone a touch softer than it was before. “Was bought and taken away when I was twelve. Instead was rescued and trained as a hunter. Went back to the old plantation to get my family back - and got revenge instead,” their hands curl into fists. But, with that out in the open, they stand and fold their hands behind their back. “But,” they continue, “That was a long time ago. Six or seven years now. Now I have a team and, more or less, a family. Learned a lot in a few short years. I’m sure you can relate.”

 

“I…” the Emperor licks his lips, then bites down sharply enough to draw blood and make the split in his skin widen further. “I was enslaved until I was thirty-three. My family is dead… and I've pushed away even my allies. There’s nothing for me in this galaxy. Just blood… pain.” He makes to stand, pushing himself up from the sill and walking over on shaking legs to stand before the bounty hunter. “I can feel your pain, too. It… it’s very… _harrowing._ You deserved more than just revenge. More than what the galaxy has done to you. But you've won, in some ways. Haven’t you… haven’t you… _Alexei?”_

 

They start as he says their name. “How do you-?” they start, and then they feel it. They step back with widening eyes; their connection to the Force has opened since they stopped taking the repressors, and they can see it in their mind’s eye, the- the small strand of the Force, connecting the two of them. Their expression twists, confused, worried, trying to put two and two together - and then it’s _his_ name in _their_ mind, and they shudder.

 

“. . . Irinei?”

 

He hasn't heard that name spoken aloud in decades; didn't have the mind to consider ever hearing it again. Venereth sucks in a deep breath; nails dig into his palms and his legs go out from under him, body slumping forward on the ground, shoulders bent, tears threatening to surface in his eyes. He wants to scream-- throw them across the room and claw himself apart. Disappear now, before he’s left alone again, before they-Alexei- walk away.

 

His fingers curl into the fabric of his robe near his knees, face betraying a hundred different emotions at once, none of them contained. He wants to scream, but he can’t; can only stay silent, rocking back onto his heels, croaking out meaningless words.

 

“--why, you, didn’t, can’t, hurts, not enough, not enough _pain,_ take it from me, make it stop, make it go away-!”

 

“Whoa, whoa!” Alexei can see him in suffering, looking tortured and pained, and they drop to their knees. They grab him by the shoulders, but he seems to be restless at even that, and against their better judgement, they just hold him tighter. “Iri- no, _Venereth_. Calm down, just breathe. What are you seeing?”

 

His hands find their shoulders and he’s burying his face against their chest, pulling them closer and holding them tighter. Limbs coiling like a vice about their body, unwilling to relinquish the sensation of _touch,_ the one thing he's been truly missing. He blinks tears out of his eyes, shakes his head once more, and breathes out.

 

“Alexei,” he says again. “Alexei… good name. Strong. Unlike… unlike me. Overemotional. Weak. They’re all waiting for me to fall-- want to drag me down with their greedy hands and their lying mouths and make me _suffer._ But I’m more than they are, now. I’m the Emperor. I'm supposed to be strong; the… the most powerful… but I’m so _empty._ I don’t know what I am, if Venereth even exists… if _he_ ever did.”

 

He hugs them close, surging upward back onto his knees and inhaling deeply once more. “Thank you… for staying. We both need to be going… I should let you go.”

This was . . . startling. His response to their touch alone, to his own name . . . but it’s made him better. Better, somehow, and Alexei can’t place how. Pulling back from them, he looks composed again, at least a little, though his cheeks are flushed, and breath still rasping, and Alexei finds it almost . . .

 

 _Cute_.

 

Familiarity seems to take hold of them like a vice-grip, and they help him stand and finally speak.

 

“Let’s go to another cantina. I’ll buy you a drink - Venereth.”


End file.
